Central Florida’s first medical marijuana dispensary is slated to open in the next few weeks on North Orange Avenue at Ivanhoe Village, next to White Wolf Cafe.

With gleaming white floors highlighted by gold flecks, wood-slat walls, custom cabinetry and glass panels separating a waiting room from the products, the Knox Medical center is slated to open at 1901 North Orange Avenue. Owners see it as more than a place to distribute, with plans to convey a message.

“I think the community can embrace it and be proud of it,” said Bruce Knox, founder of Knox Medical. “We are just trying to build them as nice as we can to dispel the myth. We all want to have a very professional image and we don’t want anything seedy that could tarnish the state’s image.”

The Knox retail operation, which has about 2,600 square feet a half mile south of Florida Hospital’s main campus, will offer delivery and in-store purchases, said Tara Tedrow, an attorney with Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed.

Knox Nursery Inc. is one of seven companies licensed to cultivate and sell to customers with physician prescription for what is considered a medicinal drug. Florida’s Department of Health Office of Compassionate Use lists hundreds of physicians who have completed training necessary to prescribe.

In the next two months, Knox expects in the next few weeks to open four new dispensaries around the state.

“Only patients will be going in there. ’Lookie-loos,’ they can’t enter the building,” the entrepreneur said. “It’s not going to be like Colorado or California with tons of people coming their and loitering and looking at their product lines.”

Locating new stores depends on local land-use and zoning ordinances, some of which address distances from churches and also the use of armored vehicles to transport cash. The Florida Association of Counties details new rules for about half the counties in the state, including Orange, Osceola and Lake.

The attorney for the Knox group said some local governments can fail to take into account that customers of these dispensaries are dealing with an array of medical conditions.

“We don't want to be in areas where these uses are relegated to industrial,” Tedrow said. “You wouldn't make people get canes in the middle of an industrial district.”

Orlando, Orange County and Winter Garden are among the Central Florida governments that last year approved a moratorium on issuing development permits for medical-marijuana operations. Orlando approved the Knox facility as a “Charlotte’s Web” dispensary, which sells products with less than 0.3 percent THC.

County planning staff are in the process of studying the potential impact of marijuana dispensaries on county businesses and residents, and comb through land-development rules.

State regulations are also brewing with two proposed bills restricting the placement of dispensaries (SB 614 and 406) as lawmakers grapple with the implementation of a medical-marijuana constitutional amendment that passed with 71 percent of voter approval in November.

ASF General Contracting transformed the Orange Avenue storefront, which had previously been the home of a private dining room and a stone and tile supplier. The store is almost completed but awaits inspections by the city and state.

The sparkling, contemporary space sits along a shopping area that relies primarily on street parking but is just a few blocks from a SunRail station. Building owner Michael Hennessey, who has operated the White Wolf Cafe next store for a quarter century, said any parking constraints have not impacted businesses there. He described the new Knox space as: “beautiful.”

Other dispensaries in the state, Knox said, will have the same open, polished feel as the one opening in Orlando: 3400 SW 34th Street, Gainesville; 1902 Thomasville Road, Tallahassee; the San Jose area of Jacksonville, and an undisclosed location in Lake Worth.